Fifty Ways to Love Your Coworkers
by Citizenjess
Summary: With all of the office romance at ISIS, it's a wonder anything else gets accomplished.


I borrowed 1sentence's "Epsilon" challenge theme set for this collection of "ARCHER" mini 'fics, because, quite frankly, the world could use more of them.

Summary: With all of the office romance at ISIS, it's a wonder anything else gets accomplished. Rated PG-13.

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**Fifty Ways to Love Your Co-Workers**

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01. Motion: When Cheryl motioned for him to follow her down the hallway and into the broom closet where their latest deeds had all been done, Cyril made sure that Pam was at least pretending not to see, and then made his way to his semi-secret shame.

02. Cool: Archer's too cool to be gay, but that doesn't stop him from thinking about how he and Ramon destroyed his mother's condo together and feeling wistful.

03. Young: Woodhouse had still been young when he'd first entered into the Archers' employment; he's still young enough to remember when he was the one bringing a rabid lemur and a couple of schoolgirls back to the apartment for the night.

04. Last: "Because the last time I let you drive my car, it ended up with a hooker that looked like your mother in the trunk!" Lana screamed, Archer's protests that "you slept with her, too!" going largely unheeded.

05. Wrong: Cyril knows it's wrong to continue submitting himself to Cheryl's advances, but if he's honest with himself, he can't deny the thrill of being on top, for once.

06. Gentle: Lana may have hands the size of a dump truck, but Pam is the first to assure everybody who will listen to her (and even some whom she has to chase down the hall) that Lana Kane is a gentle giant.

07. One: One day, Mallory thinks to herself when she's halfway through a bottle of Vodka and feeling temporarily more charitable than usual, one day, she'll tell Sterling who his father really is; but not today.

08. Thousand: No matter how many thousands of women whose vaginas Sterling Archer has been in there are, the notion that he once made contact with his mother's vagina will never leave him.

09. King: "I don't think you get to complain about our treatment by the President of Yemen when you got caught sleeping with one of his daughters and a serving girl; in his bed, even!" Lana hissed.

10. Learn: Archer learns to wipe himself, to ride a bike, to knot a tie, and to undo a girl's bra one-handedly from Woodhouse, but his mother still holds the esteemed honor of teaching him how to shoot a gun.

11. Blur: For Lana, their tryst was a blur, and also a good way to make six-hundred bucks, but Pam remembers it in painstaking detail and memorializes it on the ISIS Intranet for eternity.

12. Wait: Of all the things Archer hates to hear, "wait" is up there with "stop," his full name said by his mother, and "God damn it, Archer, I told you not in my hair."

13. Change: Archer will never change; Lana knows this, but she also knows how easy it would be to nab some of his sperm - through consenting means or otherwise - and make him change.

14. Command: Code name: Duchess still commands some respect, even though Archer gets by mostly on his looks, his dumb luck, and the fact that his mother owns ISIS; but mostly, it's his dumb luck.

15. Hold: Cheryl was understandably skeptical when Pam suggested a "no-holds-barred lesbian freak-fest" over the long weekend, but that was before they started doing Jell-o shots.

16. Need: "Yes, Lana, I really do NEED anal the same way you NEED to stop pretending that anyone who wears a sweater vest in public deserves human dignity."

17. Vision: "Wow, you're a vision," Cyril said appreciatively as Lana strode into the banquet hall in a stunning and surprisingly conservative gown; and then he doubled over coughing rapidly when Archer socked him in the gut.

18. Attention: Archer learned a long time ago that the best way to get his mother's attention was to be as outrageous as possible; he's still trying to crack the code on winning her affection.

19. Soul: Those who knew Mallory Archer best always suspected she was soulless, but few suspected what she did with Nikolai on her private phone line, until Pam "accidentally" overheard it, and then no one had to suspect a thing.

20. Picture: Archer still keeps the picture from an old Sears men's underwear catalog in his wallet, even after his mother confesses that it's not his dad, and thinks about how different things might have been if it'd been his father teaching him how to put on a condom or admonishing him on the importance of pulling out.

21. Fool: Cyril's no fool: He knows he can't hope to measure up to Sterling Archer; however, he also knows that Lana's willing to date him because she knows how much it pisses Archer off, and that's good enough for now.

22. Mad: Lana never came out and said she was mad about all of Cyril's infidelities, but he put two-and-two together well enough on his own when he found his tires slashed and his usually meticulous apartment looking as though it had been raped by a tornado.

23. Child: When he was a child, home from boarding school and tired of beating up Woodhouse, his mother poached him an egg for breakfast while talking rapidly on her cell phone and otherwise ignoring him; the end result was slimy and had pieces of egg shell in it, but ever since then, Archer has never found anyone else's poached eggs to be acceptable.

24. Now: Now that Conrad is gone, Lana realizes that when she wished for more diversity at work, she should have been more specific.

25. Shadow: When Kreiger's shadow darkens the doorway of the H.R. office, Pam sighs inwardly and readies her dolphin puppet, the consequences of her co-worker's latest food-raping escapade lying across her desk.

26. Goodbye: Lana claims that it'd be easy to say goodbye to ISIS and the clusterfuck that is the Archer family, but when all is said and done, she secretly knows that it's exactly where she belongs.

27. Hide: Scatterbrained Jane spends most of her day hiding from Lana Kane and her truckosaurus-sized hands, and the rest stealing people's lunches out of the ISIS company refrigerator.

28. Fortune: It's Cyril's greatest wish to be able to afford the ring for Lana that she truly deserves - the one that, incidentally, costs a small fortune - and also for her to accept it; he keeps telling himself this as he suits up for another shift at Chippendale's, and prays that Pam isn't in the audience this time.

29. Safe: The contents of the safe in Mallory Archer's office are collectively the main reason that Gillette is still employed at ISIS, and his lips are sealed; for now.

30. Ghost: Once, Archer is pretty sure he sees the ghost of one of the many covert-ops he's had a hand in killing standing at the foot of his bed like it's expecting an apology or money or something, but then he decides that there's some wisdom to his mother's suggestion that gummi bears and scotch do not a well-balanced diet make, and goes back to sleep.

31. Book: There's a baby book filled with Archer's firsts, as well as his triumphs and defeats ("first time Sterling kept a dry bed for the entire night, age 22"), all of which have been painstakingly recorded by Woodhouse.

32. Eye: Those Cuban homosexuals really did have a flair for fashion, Woodhouse mused, trying to pass the time before his charge returned to the hotel room and realized that his manservant was still tied up.

33. Never: They all learned some things about one another during a rousing game of "never have I ever" at the ISIS Christmas party, but no one as much as Pam, who beat out even Archer in a "tattoo in the weirdest place" contest.

34. Sing: It's somehow not surprising to Lana that their spying would have them end up at some dive bar in Tijuana, but she didn't count on Archer daring her to sing drunken karaoke, or on him being better at it than her.

35. Sudden: Archer's sudden interest in winning Lana back becomes increasingly apparent after Cyril's multiple infidelities come to pass, much to the delight of anyone following Pam's work blog.

36. Stop: When Mallory stopped being mean to the ISIS drones for half a day while processing the idea that her son was dead, the office collectively wondered when Hell had frozen over, and how.

37. Time: In time, Kreiger thinks wistfully, Fisto Roboto will be one-hundred percent comparable to a human sex partner, complete with preferences for positions and days when it just wants to go to sleep because it has a headache.

38. Wash: Mallory had often threatened to wash his mouth out with soap when he sassed her, but the task generally fell to Woodhouse, who usually gave him a warm glass of milk and kept him occupied until his mother forgot that he was in trouble.

39. Torn: Archer's second darker-black turtleneck sweater gets torn when he snags it on a rack in an adult shop where his dates for the evening are currently trying on cheerleading uniforms, and he's angry about it for the rest of the night.

40. History: Mallory Archer's sexual history is a colorful tapestry of men, women, and some complicated moments involving her beloved dog Duchess that she'll take to the grave with her.

41. Power: Mallory knows deep-down that she doesn't have absolute power over the drones, but she can make them come in on Saturday, and that makes her feel pretty damn good.

42. Bother: It doesn't really bother Cheryl or Carol or whomever that nobody can remember her name, she tells herself, and practices signing her checks with the latest moniker bestowed upon her lazily by Mr. Archer.

43. God: Archer doesn't really believe in God or Allah or whatever, but he does plan to try out that whole 72 virgins thing while he's still alive.

44. Wall: With a wall of ODIN operatives surrounding them on all sides, Archer knows his best options are to surrender peaceably or go down in pants-shitting infamy as the only ISIS agent with the balls to grab one of the hotter female enemy agents and use her as a human shield while he makes his daring escape; he opts for the latter.

45. Naked: It wasn't surprising that he was naked, covered in chocolate syrup, surrounded by three girls, or that he was thinking about his mother; it was surprising that one of those girls was Pam.

46. Drive: "Do you even remember how to drive, Woodhouse, or do you think you still push the car with your feet; God, you're so old."

47. Harm: Lana made it clear that she wasn't going to harm anyone when she stuck her knife through the ISIS cafeteria refrigerator, but Scatterbrained Jane decided it probably wasn't a good idea to make any sudden movements anyway.

48. Precious: "As precious as it is for him to start foaming at the mouth every time a cell phone goes off, he's more useful to me without that chip in his head."

49. Hunger: Though Pam's appreciation for cheesecake is legendary around ISIS, her hunger for gossip is far more satisfying.

50. Believe: Archer is pretty unbelievable more often than not, but Lana's still pretty sure she can count on him to initiate some daring and ridiculously reckless rescue mission, were she ever to need one.


End file.
